On Whose Last Steps I Climb
All around is barely controlled chaos: tottering piles of papers, quills of every size, a rickety abacus held together with paste and tape, a colourful avalanche of paper clips. Just one spot is pristine, a perfect rectangle of neatness among the dust of years.
I grunt a little as I light my horn and reach for the heavy ledger, guiding it down from its high shelf to the allotted space on the desk. I set the book down and my mind tenses.
“A timberwolf?” I say, raising brows but not eyes as I find the appropriate section. “Just the one?”
There’s a snort – the sound of a practical pony who has little patience for jokes. I decide not to tell her that my question was entirely serious.
“Just the one,” echoes Applejack. “The darn thing was a-prowlin’ and a-growlin’ right there below Apple Bloom’s bedroom! Why, if I hadn’t been there, my little sister could’ve—” She catches herself and I raise a hoof.
“The name?” I ask.
Even with my eyes still glued to the Book of Ended Lives, I can tell that Applejack is rolling hers. Still, one thing this mare knows is the importance of rules. Without the rules of the land, there would be no Sweet Apple Acres and no apples to be bucked. It makes Applejack easier to deal with than some other ponies, at any rate.
Realising the silence has not been broken, I look up; Applejack seems to take that as her cue to answer at last. Though I don’t know if I’d call it an answer.
“It was a pony-eatin’ timberwolf, sugarcube,” she says. Her voice is calm and even, but there’s precious little affection in the endearment. “I don’t go askin’ names and making all friendly-like with vermin comin’ after my kin. I do what needs to be done.”
I bite down, hard, on my tongue and select a suitable quill, making it dipin the inkwell built into the desk. In the deepest midnight blue, I scratch the single word “Unknown” in the appropriate space, working calmly and efficiently with the assurance that comes of long years of practice. There are twelve other entries on this page, but this one will be different. I don’t know if timberwolves even have names, but what else can I do?
The farce continues as I move across the columns. Age, sex, place of origin: Unknown, Unknown, Unknown.
Sometimes, in that half-light of the soul that lies between sleep and wakefulness, I ponder whether Princess Celestia really knows what she’s doing. She has ruled this land for centuries, and under her command ponykind has never lost its mastery of Equestria. Not even in the dark times, five hundred years ago, when the wild blizzards came and the wild windigoes with them, when the Sun Princess ruled alone beneath the choking clouds from her castle of ice and sorrow. But—does she really know how the mortal ponies who inhabit her domain live – and can she truly know what it means for them to die?
Now we’re into the nitty-gritty. I look up at Applejack. “Cause of death?”
She draws herself up, head rising and chest swelling. Her green eyes are clear and hard. I keep the quill poised.
“I bucked it right in the face.”
I lower the quill to the desk; it lands with a harsh click.
“Um, what?”
Applejack’s eyes narrow; her voice is low and lean and lethal. “I bucked it in the face. Worked mighty well, too. Are you sittin’ there safe and snug behind your desk in Town Hall and tellin’ me I should’ve asked it in for a nice chat by the fire and a mug of spiced cider?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Ma’am.”
I realise my error half a moment too late.
“Don’t you ‘Ma’am’ me, Mister Last Account. Ponies have names.” If there was little warmth in her voice before, now it carries the blinding, piercing cold of the High Yakyakistan peaks. “I’d have sooner put that thing straight on the fire and had done with it, then let its ashes warm a supper for Apple Bloom. It would have done more good there than it ever did in life. I’m only here at all because I promised Fluttershy.”
I try not to let my eyes betray me, I suspect not quite succeeding; I should have known she would be involved. My mind drifts back to the previous morning.
She was crying, the way she always did.
“And little Ossie Osprey, she got caught by a quarray eel and tried to pull herself away... I tried to help, I tried so hard, but... I’m sorry. I had to tell you... for remembrance. Thank you.” She laid a gentle hoof on my own.
I was crying too, the way I always did.
“Is... is that everyone?”
A quick, tear-stained nod. It was enough. There were no Unknowns with Fluttershy. And no being, alive or dead, had more entries in the Book of Ended Lives than she.
She waited, as always, until the day’s records were complete and I was returning the Book to its place. She smiled through her tears and thanked me again, then left to resume her calling. She would save lives and mend lives without number, but sometimes there were no more answers. And when despair burned so cold, she would do as Kindness commanded. So she would return – always.
How she bears it is beyond my ability to understand. Perhaps she doesn’t know herself.
But that is the lot of a Bearer.
“Are you even listenin’ to me?”
I shake myself back to the present, the tendrils of my memories relinquishing their hold only sluggishly.
“I apologise, Ms Applejack. I had allowed my mind to drift to other matters. Please, go on.”
Applejack looks at me in silence for a moment. “Well, I can’t fault a pony for bein’ honest, I guess.” She reaches up and fidgets with the lip of her hat; something seems to be bothering her. I’d ask, but half a lifetime in jobs like this tells me now isn’t the time. Fortunately, she makes the decision for me.
“Truth be told, Mr Account, my mind wasn’t all here just then, either.” Her gaze is as direct and straightforward as always, but I fancy I can see the slightest cloudiness in those emerald irises. In the silence, through the fractionally opened window, I hear the town clock strike. I pick up the quill once more, but Applejack reaches out a hoof and knocks it from my aura; it clatters to the desk. It’s terribly bad manners, but I’m not going to upbraid her for it. Not this pony. Not now.
“I got somethin’ I ought to tell you. I reckon it’s time.” A sense of foreboding sweeps through me, though I can’t quite think why.
“Me? Why me?”
Applejack looks at me, appraisingly. She appears to come to a decision, sweeping her hat off to hold it in front of her, her golden mane flowing in what slight breeze there is. I’ve never seen her remove her hat in here before. I haul myself a little straighter.
“How long you been workin’ in this office, Mr Account?”
It’s such an ordinary, everyday question that it strikes me like a jet of cold water in the face. I blink a few times, screwing my eyes up hard each time.
“Six, seven, eight years,” I say at last. “I’d have to look it up now; the days can blend into one another sometimes. I know you were here when I moved up from the Fillydelphia office.”
“I was,” she replies. “Seven years and sixty-three days ago. That very first time, I was standin’ right here by this door, and you were workin’ right there at that desk.”
Ah. I drop my gaze and rest my forehooves together on the desk. “I know.”
As I raise my eyes and my hooves from the time-planed wood of the desk’s surface, Applejack looks away for just a moment. If it were any other pony, I’d think she was having quite some trouble reining in her emotions. With her... well. I come to a decision.
“I know,” I say again.
A fire comes into Applejack’s gaze, though she remains calm. She eyes me in silence; I feel as though the layers are being scorched from my body, on and on until she reaches my soul. She makes a decision of her own.
“No.”
“I’m sorry?” It’s such a feeble response, but it’s all I can manage. I have to force myself to meet Applejack’s eyes.
“Do you have any family, Mr Account?”
A shudder of ice courses through my body. I’ve always known this question would come. I’ve waited so long for this; rehearsed what I would do, what I would say, what she would say; told myself again and again that it was all part of the job, that when the time came I would take it in my stride.
Lies. And she knows it.
“Not any more,” I say.
“What happened?” It comes out so much like a challenge that I half-rise from the seat before checking. Applejack stands impassively as I gather myself and settle back down, rubbing a hoof harshly across my brow.
“We were divorced,” I say simply. “We had no foals, after all, and we both agreed it was the best thing to do. It was time for us to move on.”
The flame in Applejack’s eyes burns a harsher, grittier hue.
“And did you make an entry about that?”
“No. The Marriage Records Office is across the hall.” I risk a tiny smile. “It’s a little noisier than this place.”
“That ain’t what I meant.”
I don’t understand. “I don’t understand,” I say.
Applejack cocks her head slightly. “You ever think about your,” there’s a tiny pause, “wife?”
“Oh, sure,” I say, venturing another smile. “We still send each other cards at Hearth’s Warming.”
Applejack shakes her head slightly. “Nope.”
“I’m sorry?”
She says, “I don’t mean once a year, doin’ it because everypony else is. I mean... when did you last think about her buyin’ carrots at the market, or singin’ in the choir? When did you last think about her eatin’ a daisy sandwich and complainin’ there’s too much pepper? When did you last think about that mare livin’ her life?”
I sigh and rub the back of my neck roughly with a hoof, saying nothing.
“You understand now?”
I do.
“You want me to go on?”
“Yeah.” I blink twice, hard. “Yes, please do. Why did you come to the office alone that day? You were still very young then, after all.”
“That’s easy enough. Granny was grievin’ for her son and her daughter-in-law; she was in no condition to come along.”
I refrain from pointing out that Applejack was grieving too. Right now, I might as well buck her in the face. I search for something better to say, and think I find it.
“Yes, yes, you’re right. Safe and warm at home.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’m wrong. Applejack’s look could melt granite; the calmness in her voice is worse.
“And ‘sides, somepony had to be there for little Apple Bloom, and Granny’s hearin’ had always been the best out of all of us. I made Big McIntosh stay home with her, ‘cause somepony needed to keep an eye on her. Good thing, too, else I wouldn’t be here right now.”
I don’t make the connection and simply wait for Applejack to continue. All I can hear is the irritated buzzing of a fly, somewhere high up. I keep waiting.
“I came down here,” she says at last, “and talked to you – you’ll remember every little detail about that, I reckon.” I don’t, but I have more sense than to say so. “When I was done... I went to clean myself up a little.” She places her hat flat on the desk, though she doesn’t quite let go. “And then I needed a drink, so I went to the restaurant—bought myself a couple sarsaparillas. I needed those.”
She pauses again. I don’t quite see why, but while I’m still wondering, she raps out a question.
“What did you do that day?”
I don’t know how to answer that.
“Um, after you’d gone home?”
“After I’d left your office.” It sounds like a correction.
“Well, um,” I stutter, “I was pretty shaken, of course. All the training in the world can’t prepare a pony for something like... that. The rest of the day was pretty straightforward, really. A few pets, all natural causes, and that was about it. Though one of them was a squirrel; small-town Equestria was a whole new world to me.”
Applejack forces a thin smile. I acknowledge it with one of my own.
“Right. Fluttershy only moved down here a couple of years later. Squirrels? I didn’t know the half of it. But what’s all this leading up to, Ms Applejack?”
“I’ll tell you what I did that day,” she says, her voice strained once more. “I finished up my sarsaparillas and pulled myself together. Then I trotted back to Sweet Apple Acres, found my kinfolk and saved a few lives.”
I stare at the mare standing in front of me, fidgeting with her hat again, and wonder if I heard her right. Then I focus fully on her eyes and the uncertainty falls away.
“Timberwolves, of course,” she says, as though there could never have been any doubt. “Three of the curs. They ain’t stupid, I’ll give ‘em that. They knew Granny, Big Mac and AB were vulnerable right then, all three of them upstairs and exhausted in that one room waitin’ for me to come back, and they planned to make the most of it.”
I spread my suddenly aching hooves on the desk, almost touching the brim of Applejack’s hat. She glowers at me, and I withdraw them a little.
“Somepony had left the kitchen window wide open.” She thumps an iron-hard hoof down right where mine had been, and unleashes a string of savage curses, every one of them aimed at herself. Visibly shaking now, she continues.
“Well, ‘soon as I saw what was goin’ on, I was leapin’ through that window like a jackrabbit. One of ‘em was right on the other side – lucky for me I was all wound up and ready.” She gives a mirthless chuckle. “Less lucky for that thing, thank the earth.”
I search for a suitable reply. There is nothing. I reach out towards Applejack, change my mind midway and let my hooves fall back. She raises a single eyebrow slightly; there’s a touch of reproof in the gesture.
“The bits were still clatterin’ all round when I heard a noise from upstairs. Couldn’t be certain, but it sure sounded to me like AB’s voice. Well, I was up those stairs faster’n a hog on washday. Right when I got to the top, an awful screamin’ started up. I hate to admit it, but I kinda lost my senses just then. What I shoulda done was to’ve gotten myself prepared and gone in all alert-like. What I did was turn myself around and buck that door off its hinges.
“There was another timberwolf right behind it.” She gives a tiny nod. “Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. Or wood with wood. The door took its head clean off, and when that happens to these monsters, the rest just falls apart.”
Perhaps she sees the question rising up my gullet before I know it’s even there.
“Sweet Apple Acres ain’t where it is for the hay of it. There’s power in that land. It’s old magic, and it ain’t gettin’ any younger each day, but right now it’s enough.”
I sit back in my seat, silently inviting her to go on.
“I thought it must be my lucky day.”
Applejack presses her hat into to the desk so hard her hooves turn white. I stare for a moment, then force myself to look away, back at her face.
“Leastways, I did ‘til I saw the third one standin’ there, a-slaverin’ over Apple Bloom’s crib as she cried and hollered for her momma. The momma who was never comin’ back.”
One of the precarious piles of papers slides on to the floor, sheet after sheet swishing into a mess that’s going to take hours to clean up. I don’t move. I’m vaguely aware of the sounds of everyday business going on outside the door, but they might as well be a thousand miles away. It’s well past five now, but I’m not going to be leaving until this is over.
I wonder what would happen if did – if I told Applejack I needed to get home to my dinner. Probably she’d place her hat back on her head, give a flick of that golden mane and politely thank me for listening, then walk calmly out of the door. I wouldn’t see her again.
“Big Mac and Granny were there too, throwin’ themselves at the thing, again and again and again.” At last, Applejack’s eyes drop to the floor. “There was blood on the two of them, blood on the floor – blood on the crib.”
My mind races. They didn't—? No. No. I was at the schoolhouse just a week ago. Apple Bloom was there that day, but... poor Cheerilee. Some things they can’t train a teacher for.
“My mind went awful blank just then, and when that happens it’s my muzzle that takes over. Least that's what Big McIntosh will tell you.” Her short laugh is shocking. “I drew myself up real tall-like and hollered at the beast. ‘Come and get me, you slobberin’ varmint!’ – like it was a fox or somethin’.”
All at once, Applejack sags. I reach out a tentative hoof, and this time she grabs at it, pressing it tight to the desk. She brings her face close to mine; there's the scent of hay and muck and hard manual labour. And apples, of course. Her eyes are steady and clear now – almost too much so. They’re the eyes of a pony dancing on the edge of a knife.
“You know it was Winona’s birthday last month?” she asks, seemingly apropos of nothing.
“Sure,” I say. Half of Ponyville was there, so they said in the Express. It was quite a party, even by Pinkie’s standards.
“She was seven,” says Applejack.
I struggle to see where this is going. I’m dreading another meaningful glare or charged gesture, but all I get is a single word.
“Seven,” she repeats. The pressure on my hoof increases. “Mare’s best friend, they say. They’re right about that, but times are it’s an awful curse on them.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t—” I widen my eyes, and then, “Oh, Celestia.”
Applejack nods. “Her name was Winnie. She was Winona’s granny.”
I’m just staring at her now. I tell myself that this is no worse than some of the things Fluttershy has told me over the years – but even in my head, it sounds hollow.
“Just as that timberwolf came for me, Winnie raced in, barkin’ her head off. I dunno where she’d been, but she sure knew where she was goin’.” Applejack drops her eyes for just a moment. “She went right for the beast’s eyes.”
I say nothing. She hears me, I’m certain.
“Then that... thing’s paw snapped around and—” There are tiny beads of sweat on Applejack’s brow. “I never heard a noise like that before, but it weren’t the last time. I heard it again and again those next few days.”
A light goes on outside. Another goes on in my head.
“And that’s why...?”
Applejack nods, more vigorously than I expect, and I have to fight the impulse to jerk back in my chair. “She hadn’t gone away.”
I start to wonder why she didn’t make the report a little later, but I don’t get far.
“I can still hear it now,” she says, leaning a little towards me. “Every single night.”
I force myself not to close my eyes. Instead, I shake my head very slightly. Applejack’s expression flickers only momentarily, but it’s enough.
There’s so much I want to ask, but her head snaps back and my chance is gone.
“And when the cur was done with Winnie, it went for Granny’s head. She dodged just enough that it only knocked her out, thank the earth. But the crack of her head slammin’ down on the floor... truth is, I hear that every night as well.”
I can’t help myself. “But Granny Smith’s still—”
“—alive? Granny’s one tough cookie, even if her hearin’ ain’t been so good since.” Applejack purses her lips for a second. “Three outta four ain’t so bad, I guess.” She swallows. “But I knew right there that if I wasted time thinkin’ ‘bout that then I’d be goin’ on the debit side of that ledger.”
Only now do I realise that my throat is parched; the realisation makes me cough violently. Applejack pulls back a little, though she watches me all the while, honest concern in her expression. When I’m done, she carries on.
“Turnin’ my back on everypony – on... Winnie – that was the hardest thing I ever did.”
My brow furrows and I open my mouth, but Applejack cuts in before I can speak.
“I bucked it right in the face.”
There’s silence, long moments of it, and I become aware of the dust motes dancing in the air. Then the clock outside chimes again and the spell is broken. Only now, as Applejack pulls away a little, do I notice the wiry sinews standing out on her lean neck.
“I honour my debts, Mr Account.” At last she places her hat back on her head; at last I see her blink again. “And this debt ain’t the kind that gets wiped out. I care for Mac and Granny and AB somethin’ fierce, Winona too, and that ain’t never going to change. They’re my kinfolk, and there ain’t nothin’ worth more to me than them.”
She turns to leave, then as she pushes the door open she twists her head to look back at me.
“No compromises,” she says.
I meet her gaze. “You do—” I don’t want to finish the sentence. It’s not my right. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but I fancy I see a faint respect in Applejack’s expression.
“—what has to be done.” Now she smiles again, and this time it’s the simple, friendly smile I’ve seen so many times before. “You have a good evenin’ now.”
She tips her hat and walks out of the room. The door swings shut behind her.
I suddenly realise how hungry I am, and how late it is, and how much my muscles ache – but I don’t like to leave a job unfinished. Especially not this one. I capture the quill in my aura and prepare to give Winnie her due; its point hovers a fraction of an inch above the paper.
She hadn’t gone away.
I lift the quill for a moment and turn it in my magic, wondering about the bird it came from, considering its lost beauty. Then, solemnly, calmly, heavily, I set it back against the paper and scratch in the details. I turn the page, even though this one is not yet full, and thump the Book closed. Getting to my hooves, I float the Book quickly back to its home on the high shelf. For a few moments I contemplate the empty rectangle on my desk. I have some thinking to do tonight—and then, perhaps, an appointment with the Mayor in the morning.
Lives end; leaves turn; life flows.
Tomorrow will be better. Or worse. Or neither; who can tell?
But it will be tomorrow.
